


Dynamics and rocket science

by orphan_account



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5862922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The five days Max and Victoria study in the library, and the one day they don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dynamics and rocket science

**Author's Note:**

> Snapshots of Max and Victoria spending time in the library. A bit of writing exercise while I procrastinate from my other fics (I am so sorry.)
> 
> Their development is probably too fast but this is kind of fluffy and happy so shush.

I.

The sound of wood scraping on linoleum is what makes Max look up. Well, that and the immediate smell of lavender and honeydew in the air. She glances up from her Science textbook, mouth slacking as something blonde, fierce, and brooding flops down on the seat across from her. The chair legs scratch the floor again when the newly occupied chair pulls into the table.

Victoria Chase is daintily setting her own things on the desk, books, transcripts and tablet and everything. Her handbag is set aside on the empty chair next to her.

"Um," Max drawls, splayed hands on the tabletop curling inward in a loose fist. When Victoria glances up at her in a motion so sharp Max thinks for a moment that might've snapped a tendon, she flinches. She tries again. "Uh."

" _What?_ " Victoria asks sharply, lowered because of library rules. Max's eyebrows rise.

Okay. Again, from the top. "Um, uh," Stop that. "Hi, Victoria."

"Yes, hello, Max." Is Victoria's answer, complete with an eye roll and furrowed brows. While she's going through her things Max chances a glance around. Even with the impending major exams, the Blackwell library isn't as crowded as it should be. The usual students are around though, the faces of other scholars she's pretty much memorized, some others sneaking a nap on their vacant hour (totally against library rules, but the librarian is doubled over her desk sleeping too so whatever) so there are a good number of other vacant desks around. Like seriously. Ripe for the taking. They're begging to be occupied.

So. She looks back to her untimely intruder. Victoria's sifting through the pages of some thick, soft bound textbook. Of all the places?... "Victoria?" Max ventures timidly to which Victoria grunts. "Can I help you with anything?"

Victoria looks up from her book, face still taut in a semi-permanent brooding expression like it's this month's trend. "You can start by quitting with the staring and talking, _hipster_ ," Even lowered, her voice is so clear, the syllables articulated so well it's just not possible to misunderstand anything. Soft and stiff in equal measure, like smooth dark chocolate with the bitter aftertaste. Max would know about chocolates. Check out her stomach baby flab. "And maybe getting off my table. That would be wonderful."

"Your table?" Max repeats stupidly and she's pretty sure she hasn't complied with the not staring and not talking thing. Victoria hunches over her book again anyway.

"I always sit here whenever I come here to study. I like the light from the window."

She must mean the window just next to them. The afternoon sun is coming in in lazy heaves of yellow and Max is noticing the way the light is bringing out the smooth length of Victoria's nose when she shouldn't be. Dust mites flutter in the beams but they keep off Victoria's figure in general, like she's some untouchable divine specimen. Or an indestructible spawn of hell. A really pretty indestructible spawn of hell, but whatever.

"I was here first." Max says with some childish indignation and she puts her chin up, but promptly sets it down again when Victoria throws her an unimpressed look.

"Unfortunately." Is all she says. They stare at each other. Max, quietly admiring the delicate slopes of Victoria's face (because doing so during Photography class isn't enough, apparently,) Victoria, conjuring metal pins and daggers Max's way. Max's pulse goes heavy metal in half a second flat. Victoria is ultimately the first one to glance down.

"Just don't talk, Max. I need to get these Algebra formulas drilled into my brain."

Max complies. The next hour is spent sneaking glances Victoria's way, observing things like her long eyelashes and light mascara, her plump lips and choice of lipstick, the subtle strength of her jaw and chin. She really does have a nice voice. Even when she's ruefully gritting out equations and curses under her breath. Or calling Max a hippie loser every hour of everyday.

 

II.

Max is flipping through a World History textbook while Victoria is glaring down at a Chemistry transcript. She still has the smell of honeydew and lavender (shampoo? Lotion? Perfume?) and maybe some cigarettes, but she's gone with a different lipstick today. A tinge darker than yesterday. Max would know.

4pm sun is coming in through the glass of the window. Not much is different, nothing is strange.

Well, nothing is strange, except maybe the fact that Max is sitting here with her sworn enemy like Victoria hasn't tormented her since her first day here at Blackwell or anything.

What's up with that, anyway? Victoria is so pretty and smart and Max is sad hipster trash, who apparently made the mistake of breathing all over her space. This royalty and peasant hate dynamic is rocket science.

"I don't know why I have to learn this crap," Victoria mutters suddenly, looking at her transcript like she's trying to get it to burst into flames through sheer abstract hate. "I'm an artist in an arts program, for crying out loud. I don't need to learn about chemicals and boilers to properly operate a camera."

She looks up and scrunches her face. It takes the lines between her brows deepening for Max to realize that oh she's expecting a response and, well, okay. "This is still high school though. We need this for graduating and college. And all that jazz. I guess."

Victoria stares a little longer and then shakes her head, fluffy bangs flicking. She drops her forehead onto a waiting palm. "Well. Ugh. I mean, what do I care about covalent bonding or oxygen atoms or whatever?" She's flapping her other hand around in the air and Max is wondering what's so interesting about it that she just has to watch. "I breathe oxygen in, I don't need to learn anything more about it. And," The flapping hand stiffens and forms a threatening point in the air with a single index finger. "I got a B on the test we had here last week. A B. I hate this class so much and it hates me."

"I guess you just don't have very good _chemistry_ with that subject."

Victoria very, very slowly rolls her head in her hand to look at Max who is staring at her innocently, eyebrows raised and lips thin, rolled between her teeth. Max could most definitely feel her skin starting to peel with the acidity Victoria's throwing with her glare.

"You're an idiot." Victoria says, stiff and conclusive. But Max doesn't miss the smile that's already formed on her face when she looks down at her handouts again. It's making her cheeks lift, defined cheekbones prominent under her crinkling brown eyes and _wow_ , that looks _really_ nice.

 

III.

The crumpled test paper is littered with messy scrawls (mostly Xs and harsh corrections) in bright, smug red ink and Max is sneering at each scarlet line with heartfelt vehemence. An E. Better than the F on the last test, but really? _An E?_ Nothing sorrier than a kid in an IEP getting an E. She's going to burn this tonight and dance around the flames. Chloe would totally dig that.

"Practical Math?" Comes a voice somewhere in front of her. Body heat and lavender with honeydew grow closer, stronger, when Victoria leans over the tabletop to peer down at the manhandled test paper. She hums. "Practical Math. Practical. And you get an E. Solid, Max."

"Numbers are weird," Max says through her teeth before splaying a hand on the paper, right at the center, and crumpling it all over again. She dunks the trash into her bag and crosses her arms, pouting. "Numbers are hell. I hate numbers. My brain can't handle numbers. Math is stupid."

"Whoa, hold it, Incredible Hulk, peace and quiet in the library." Victoria deadpans. She's relaxed today, probably because all she has in her hands is a particularly neat copy of Ray Bradbury's Battle Royale for Literature class. She's flipping pages leisurely, leaned lopsidedly on her chair with one side of her sweater riding further on her shoulder than the other. The lack of exquisite poise might've struck Max as uncharacteristic, but of course Victoria could be all lazy as hell and still look good.

Max sniffs and continues with her agenda of the day. Glare at Math test paper, check, onto studying some Photography concepts next. Now, what the hell are Daguerreotypes again? "Easy for you to say, Victoria. You get like, good grades, and teachers just _love_ you," Max says idly as she's opening her notebook. Victoria's legs are crossed, the one over the other swaying, and for the nth time the tip of her foot nudges Max's ankle. "I'm barely on a three-point-oh GPA and I already feel like dying."

" _Good_ grades? Max, I am Blackwell golden standard," Such humility. So much modesty. "I mean, look at me, right?" And Max kind of does, tipping her head up a little for an eyeful of a grinning Victoria, head tilted away from her book, skin immaculately illuminated by slats of sunlight. She's wearing a different lipstick again today and Max wonders if the tastes are as different as the colors and _wow_ , where did _that_ come from?

"Yeah, I know," She drawls like her blood isn't rushing a little too quickly in her veins. "Look at you."

"Three-point-nine GPA, baby."

Max blows a raspberry and Victoria snorts, scoffs out a self-satisfied guffaw loud enough that someone from somewhere off shushes in their direction.

"Don't worry about it too much, hipster. You're gonna do better on the next test." Victoria says as she resumes her lounging posture, foot nudging Max on the ankle again. She doesn't seem to notice or just can't be bothered right now to. She's looking at Max and Max is looking at her, dark eyebrows close to disappearing behind untidy brown bangs.

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

And the finality of her tone is so sure, so very queen bee that the small snort Max gives is out of reflex more than anything. Victoria whips her book in front of her face again but not high enough because Max can still see her face down to her mouth, and she's smiling. This small curl of her lips, not enough that her eyes crinkle, but enough that Max can't find it in her to look away immediately.

 

IV.

"You weren't in Photography today." Victoria is saying while she's skimming through a pile of transcripts, a line forming between her eyebrows in concentration, probably. Max finds the wrinkle interesting for no rational reason at all.

"I was feeling kind of sick. Still do," And she sniffs for emphasis. The gross wetness makes the both of them wince. "I opened the window last night and kind of forgot to close it. I guess the cold got to me. I couldn't get out of bed to do shit this morning." Max dispenses with the mention that it was left open mainly because Chloe decided to break in at like, 11 last night. Also decides to dispense with the information that she didn't attend any of her classes today except her last one, because library time with Victoria comes right after that. Nah, Victoria doesn't need to know about especially _that_.

Max sniffs, a hand digging into her bag while she hunches out of sight. Pulls out a sheet of Kleenex and blows noisily into it, shoulders twitching and tendons forming roads on her neck. She dumps the abused tissue into a side pocket when she's done and straightens on her seat. Victoria's face is pinched.

"Please don't get your sick all over me," She says distastefully. When Max sniffs again, eyelids drooping, she takes a pause before her tone softens. "Max, are you really feeling okay enough to be out of bed?"

And Max just stares stupidly, zoning out because Victoria is looking at her with a frown, wrinkles on her forehead deep, face painted with so much concern that Max kind of just wants to die. Okay, quit staring, Max - this habit needs to die a sad death suffocating under a mattress while listening to 2010 Justin Bieber on loop. She nods her head after a while. "I'm okay - _really, I am_ ," - because Victoria scoffs at her and narrows her eyes with scrutiny - "Dana is blasting too much Nicki Minaj for sleeping in the dorms, anyway. Besides, I don't want to sleep. Study time is important to me." Uh-huh, super important. Study times in the library are very important.

Victoria says and does nothing beyond a small acknowledging hum and some thoughtful lip biting, and wow Max kind of wants to die again. Just flop on the floor dead while her immortal soul leaves her flesh.

"I'll tell Dana off for the music later. Just - just stop with the sick so you don't get it all over anyone else, okay? And me, yuck."

Max stares as Victoria smiles at her, small, kind, concerned, and as she dopily smiles back Victoria turns away to look back at her transcripts.

She thinks the pink on the Victoria's cheeks must be from the sunlight. Must be.

 

V.

Max is half an hour into her day's library session by the time Victoria comes barreling in. She earns shushes from the librarian (who she so boldly glares at in response) and some pointed looks from some other students. Max fidgets on her seat, idle fingers playing with the corners of the paper she has out on the table. She manages a small smile when Victoria starts bringing her things out.

"Sorry I'm late." Victoria breathlessly professes. Max feels the meat of her neck boil over because apparently this is a routine now and Victoria thinks she's late, and also she's smiling at Max and wow, please stop that, okay.

Max has a handout on Practical Math on the table (because Mr. Terry is a grouchy but merciful soul who agreed to a special retake test) and Victoria is flattening an Anne Leibovitz textbook on the page she means to read over. She glosses her eyes over the page, the light of the seeping sun catching on the tiny glitters of sweat beads on her temples and cheeks. Max thinks of diamonds for a split second.

"Are you feeling any better?" Victoria asks much later, when Max is in the middle of tearing the numbers on her handout to shreds with her eyes. Max nods her head and fights the urge to sniff to seem more convincing.

"Better than yesterday anyway," She answers. Does her voice still sound as heavy as it is to her ears? She sniffs gently, for less audibility, and swallows hard on the gross stickiness at the back of her throat. Snot swallow? "Dana quit with the Nicki Minaj so I slept pretty soundly. Um," An uncertain glance upward tells her Victoria has her face buried behind her textbook. Max looks over the glossy print of the cover. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"She should be a lot more sensitive to neighbors, living in a dorm and whatnot." A flapping of a dainty hand. That's about the most you're welcome she's going to get so Max just smiles and shrugs.

Alright, Practical Math. Max doubles over the table, both hands splaying on the tabletop for the illusion of added concentration. She mouths the words with determination. Connections between data. _It has been shown that the amount of sleep a person gets each day decreases as they get older. How would someone show the connections between the age of a person and the amount of sleep that person gets each day?_ Right, how? There's an answer below that. And then some gibberish about scatter plotting. And correlation. What. Linear regression. _What_. And numbers. So many numbers. With letters and graphs for added fun because wow Maths. She doesn't notice her hands slide to the handout and pick it up, wringing the poor thing with her clammy fingers. What. How did that even happen? How did that number get there? _What are these lines?_ -

A throat clears and Max looks up sharply, face pale and terrified. She swallows (her mouth tastes like horror and a grueling red F) and blinks dumbly up at Victoria.

Victoria moves in perfect poise and sequence. She closes her Anne Leibovitz book, slides it to the far side, and then reaches out to pluck the mistreated handout from Max's tense hands. She appraises the contents critically, throws glances between it and the grief-stricken looking Max, back and forth like a tennis spectator, before heaving a sigh and getting to her feet.

"Move over, hipster," The tone she's using is regal, so demanding of obedience that Max slides over to the next seat unconsciously. Victoria sits on the vacated chair and whips a hand out, palm up. "Pen."

Max rummages her own bag before - aha, pen at your service, your majesty. She slides it into the waiting palm and her fingers slip into Victoria's hand with it. An electrifying brush of skin, perfunctory but enough to have her pulse working overtime on her wrists and neck. They glance at each other minutely.

Victoria swallows - _no, Max, don't notice her throat bobbing_ \- and pulls her hand away, working the pen appropriately into her fingers. "Alright, Max. Since you're already dying as it is on a barely three-point-oh GPA, like you said, and you look just about ready to pop a blood vessel in your head and be thrown into the back of an ambulance," Max winces. Victoria tilts her head. "I have decided to do a good deed and help a sad, dumb little hipster out with her Math."

The Practical Math handout is flattened and smoothed on the tabletop, manicured fingers waving over the stupid numbers and graphs printed all over it. "Victoria, I can't do Math." Max mutters, miserable.

"But I can. And so, you shall, too."

The smirk Victoria gives her is conceited but the pride loses to the kindness in her voice. She taps Max's forehead with the end of the pen and Max can't help but smile, a dumb, like really dumb curl of her mouth that's all teeth and snot threatening to drip to her lips. Like Monday, like Tuesday, like Wednesday, like Thursday, and pretty much most sunny days in the library, light is streaming in through the window at their side. And Max wonders why Victoria looks so bright, so pretty like literal sunbeams creeping into your room after an afternoon nap, and why her body and face burn like she's standing in the sunbeam's way.

 

VI.

Max had been sure the weekend meant the end of it. This, whatever the heck this is, library sessions with the Blackwell queen bee will be gone with the week and it's hello to harassment and bullying again. It's a completely logical assumption. Five days of niceties don't mean much over months of terrorizing, when compared in that context especially.

So, imagine her surprise to find Victoria sitting at their table (well, Victoria's allegedly) Monday afternoon in the library, right on schedule.

It's giddiness and a strange kind of caution that has her stepping toward Victoria tentatively. Victoria is bent over the table, pouring over a textbook Max can't quite see what subject of in this angle. She clears her throat and the Victoria's shoulders push inward into her body, head canting a slight inch to regard Max with a look.

"Uh," Max starts. A blonde brow shoots up. "Hi, Victoria."

Victoria grunts and shrugs, looks back down at her textbook. Is she even reading? She looks like she's just staring. What's that book anyway? Max does a shrug herself and sits on the chair across from her. She sets her things on the table and tosses her bag to the next chair.

When she chances a look at her companion, she notices the tension and stiffness on Victoria's shoulders and arms.

Oh. Are we back to that royalty-peasant hate dynamic now?

Max rubs at the back of her neck and tries not to be too affected, tries not to slump her shoulders too much and just get over with making sense of the page she's thrown her Science textbook open to. There are no numbers on the page, no complicated equations or crazy computations, but she's just not getting anything at all right now. It's like everything's numbers. It's like Victoria Chase is numbers.

The obvious reaction would be to leave. The right reaction. Maybe mope around a little bit in her room, listen to some sad songs with Chloe in her rusty old truck after the moping activity. Would Chloe even dig that?

But of course, Max being Max, she opts for the other reaction. The stupid one. She closes her book slowly, catching Victoria's eyes following the slow movements of her hands. She thumbs on the cover of her book a little bit before speaking. "Is something wrong, Victoria?"

Victoria doesn't look at her. "I think I'm going insane." She says with so much sanity that it completely contradicts her claim.

Okay, insane as in mentally disturbed or is that just her being dramatic? Max is fiddling with her closed textbook. Victoria still isn't looking at her and Max is really hoping she would, and like maybe smile some more again and look pretty under the sunbeams or something because that would be easier to handle. "Why do you think that?"

Victoria's rolling the words in her mouth. Max can see her jaw twitching, working the syllables around. Victoria looks up finally, face pinched in that painfully familiar Victoria Chase glower. It's such a familiar expression that Max's insides drop and her lips curl downward, shoulders folding into herself instinctively because the insults are coming and all she could think of is how complicated this whole irrational hating process is and just plain rocket science rocket science _rocket science_ -

Then the look softens. Victoria's face slacks in something like uncertainty - worry? - before scrunching again. "Because the past weekend I was doing nothing but hanging out with my friends, and it all should have been fun because we were shopping and partying and everything. But I kept thinking about this library and this stupid desk and sitting with _you_ ," She's gritting the words out, looking like it's taking so much effort it is physically tiring. "And that's insane because in those two days _without_ you I was only thinking about being with _you_."

Max's insides are reassembling themselves but not doing a very good job at it. Her heart is somewhere in her throat and she's swallowing so much to push it back down. Fluttery things are coming alive in her gut and it's taking actual effort for her not to curl and hold her stomach. Her blood is running warm, heat washing over her whole body like she's going to spontaneously combust. She's fighting a losing battle with a dopey smile.

"Is that it? Why are you so angry?"

"I am not angry," Victoria says angrily, with an angry expression. "Don't laugh. Stop laughing."

"I'm not laughing!" Except Max is, and someone is shushing her so she flattens her hands over her flushing face. She mushes her sweaty palms against her eyes and then her cheeks, and resumes grinning at the frowning, pretty blonde girl across from her. "I missed spending time with you, too."

An adorable redness sweeps over Victoria's face and Max is a hundred percent sure that isn't from the sun. She's fighting a smile, you could literally see the battle going on in the small twitches of her mouth and cheeks but she's winning the battle at least. She's pretty good at winning. "Shut up. This is stupid. Your face is stupid. I should hate your face."

The insult is lame and half-hearted. The dynamic is changing, floors are shifting and ceilings are caving in, and Victoria is suddenly losing. She's smiling now. A little more openly, and she's thumbing the pages of her open book while glancing up, down, anywhere Max's apparently stupid face can't be seen.

"You don't though." Max mutters. Victoria scoffs, defeated. She appraises Max wordlessly before beginning to tidy her things in neat piles.

Max is on the verge of panicking but Victoria cuts off the beginnings of her bumbling. "Let's get out of here. I want to take you out to the Two Whales or something. I'll study tonight in my room."

Well okay, it's no declaration of undying love or anything but Victoria wants to be with her and take her out and that's pretty close. Right? Max really thinks so. In fact she can't stop thinking so. She's still smiling while she's packing up her own things and following Victoria's lead out of the Blackwell library. Victoria sees her beaming and nudges with her elbow.

"Stop that, hipster." She says, stiff, well-articulated, and so insanely queen bee of her. But she smiles anyway. A warm and pretty curl of her lips.

Victoria Chase is rocket science, man.


End file.
